Summer Promises
by midnightneverland
Summary: Companion to Autumn Storm, Winter Wind, and Spring Blossoms. Summer is upon her and Max isn't sure what this new chapter of life will bring without Chloe, but she is ready to face it. There will be an epilogue piece and then the series will be finished. I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I did writing them. Thank you.
1. Chapter 1

Max has visited Joyce all of five times since Chloe has passed. It had taken her weeks to even step on their front porch again and she had nearly bolted after she had knocked. Seeing Joyce pulls at the wounds in her heart, her mind, and she spaces out her visits so that she can breathe. She misses the warmth in Joyce's words and hugs Max far more than she's comfortable with, but she lifts her head a little higher each time Max sees her. She wonders if she's changed, too, if she will shed her grief like a winter coat, set aside for the next winter. Joyce had given her a box filled with their childhood and it's only when she's packing her dorm, at the end of May, that she finds the courage to open it.

She flips through them, again and again, until she has the lines of their faces memorized, can nearly hear the laughter from those memories. It's haunting as it reminds her of rewinding and she feels the itch to reach forward and live those moments again. But her powers are long gone now. She is flesh and bone and utterly ordinary, once again.

She settles her own polaroids inside the box, nestled among the photos of toothy grins.

"Hey." Warren knocks on her doorway, a roll of packing tape in one hand. He'd promised to help her pack and immediately sets to work taping the boxes she'd finished packing. Tension builds in the silence between them. There is only the scraping of tape on boxes, sections of her life measured and shoved aside. She wonders how different it will be to be back home and if he will think of her. She is taking a year off before college, but she's enrolled in a photography class at the community college. A few other classes, too, to boost the GPA she'd destroyed this past year. It's not much but it's enough.

"I'm going to visit every weekend," Warren promises, hiding bleary eyes behind the fringe of his hair. "We'll have road trips and I'll even go retro and write you letters. It'll be like an adventure."

Max laughs because it's easier than crying. She doesn't know how she is going to deal without this boy who had breathed life back into her for the past nine months. "Every weekend is stretching it, isn't it?" she asks and settles down onto her couch, already exhausted.

"Well, maybe, except," he pauses, setting the packing tape down. "I was going to surprise you. I don't know, show up the first week of classes all cool with flowers or something." He pauses again, his face darkening and she jumps to her feet, finally connecting the meaning to his words. "I got into University of Washington. Full ride. So it'll be like I'm down the street."

"No way," she tries to say, but her breath leaves her before the words do. She takes one step towards him and his open arms and jumps into them. He stumbles, wrapping his arms around her, and they tumble into the boxes behind them.

"You were going to spend all summer without telling me? That was your big secret these past few months? Thanks, jerk," she tells him, smacking him on the shoulder and he laughs.

It feels good to laugh again, to fill her lungs with air and tangible joy. It has happened more and more these past few months, like she has awoken from a long nap.

He grasps her chin, calculating eyes upon her. "You are an amazing person, Max," he whispers and she blushes, trying to shake to her head. He holds her chin steady. "No, you are. The most amazing and bravest person I know. And..." He trails off, eyes dipping towards her lips and presses his mouth gently against hers.

She feels her breath bury in her chest, a ball of air, electricity, and disbelief. And then she exhales, falls into him, leaves herself. She is here, in this moment, flesh and bone, and alive. She is real.


	2. Chapter 2

Heading home feels strange to Max. Her favorite tree still sits in the backyard, where's she climbed to shoot photos over and over again. The stairs creak exactly as they have for the past five years. Her room is plastered in the same smear of posters as the day she left. Everything feels the same but remarkably different, as if something has shifted slightly out of focus. She is not the same person she was when she left, which feels like a million lifetimes ago.

She had spent most of her teenage years locked in her room, surrounding herself in music and movies until the urge to leave would jump at her. Then she would go where the wind, her wallet, and her friends would take her.

But now, she finds that her room is too small, too confining. She spends most of her days hunting for photo opportunities. She loses herself in the bump and grind of the city, sometimes riding the transit just so she can see the whirl of buildings pass her. There's a small patch of trees behind her suburban neighborhood and when the city is too much, she trails through them, a small pocket of quiet in the storm of her mind. She is restless, though it's not entirely a bad concept. It's as if she's making up for the months she has spent lost in the fog. She craves constant movement.

Warren visits often and her mom is absolutely enamored with him. She makes them snacks and ruffles his hair. Her dad rolls his eyes at her hovering but she ignores him. Max gives her twenty minutes before yanking him outside to have him all to herself.

They drive off, exploring roads she hasn't taken before. That's their favorite activity, and they hunt down abandoned buildings for Max to take photos of. She notices her selfies are becoming a little less prominent these days as she gravitates to the lost stories of these buildings. She vaguely remembers the Prescott barn, which she has shoved deep into the closet of her subconscious, but she leaves it there in the darkness. She sees a bit of herself in these buildings and each photo she snaps is a record of her growth, of her stepping out of the shadows. She sees Chloe there as well. Her personality is intertwined in the grit of the buildings, immortalized in places she's never been. She takes these photos for Chloe, as well, bringing her to each place to leave her mark.

"I think my mom's going to propose to you," she tells Warren as the summer air hits her face through the open window. His air-conditioning is broken again, but she doesn't mind the luke-warm breeze.

"Well, I guess that saves me from having to do it," he says and after seeing her paling face, adds "if the time ever came, I mean." Their relationship is a back-and-forth battle between the familiar and the unknown. They fall into each other easily, puzzle pieces snapped into place, but she's not ready for the entirety of his eagerness. There's a finality to it that frightens her as much as locking herself in her bedroom does. She doesn't like predictable endings.

But Warren surprises her in ways she never thought. He shows up on random days, with movie tickets or dinner. They sneak into a park after hours and watch the stars. One time they slip into a club that they end up leaving ten minutes later, disappointed by the loud chaos and stink of sweat and beer.

He never pressures her, intentionally, but jokes like that make her skin crawl with anxiety.

"Hey," he murmurs, pulling over near an old corner store. He kisses her, his hand nestled in her hair and wraps a strand loosely around his fingers. "We've only been together all of three months. I'm happy with whatever this is. If we get married, if we don't, if we're still cruising down this road five weeks or five years from now, as long as you're happy, then I'll take it." She thinks there is more to that, but she's grateful that he doesn't say it. Instead, she leans into him and thinks of the adventures they'd had that summer and the ones that will surely come in autumn, when school starts again. It's enough, which is all she wants right now, and kisses him with a fierceness that surprises them both. In this moment, she is free, and that is enough.


End file.
